Vaudevillain by tetran

This is a story that understands the appeal of alternate-world stories:

The stakes are minimal, in fact almost literally zero, because it's a story about a game, and even if money or internet fame is at stake, it's being played by a functional adult with a real job in his spare time. The author has confidence that the characters and story can hold our interest without any cheap soap opera inflated stakes, and he's correct.

The story doesn't address any of Dylan's real life beyond what someone in game would know (oh, man, I couldn't play because it was a long week at work, let's go do some gaming now) because for once the author has actually played a video game in his life and doesn't feel the need to make it a speculative fiction novel written by an alien about the mechanics of your hew-monn gam-ezz and how numbers work and such. He's telling a story about Dylan using the game to create a persona and mischief, and trusts that to stand on its own... and it does.

There are no deep insecurities or tangled motivations intentionally concealed for dramatic reveals: Dylan wants to build the ultimate classic villain in the snidely whiplash / bond villain mode and execute convoluted schemes until his hubris is his downfall, that's what he does, and that's what the story is built on. Again, the author trusts his premise and the clear, stated motivation of the protagonist to hold up the story, and is again completely correct to do so because it works amazingly.

As for the story built upon one protagonist and his one desire overcoming the obstacles in the way, I can only say that the trend of the author trusting in his ideas enough to let them play out continues to pan out. Every character has their own distinct deal going on, even the NPCs, all clearly defined and not overcomplicated. Dr Zlo's approach to everything is delightfully loopy and indirect in keeping with Dylan's goals, the schemes themselves and the fallout is always creating new encounters that show us interesting facets of the world or show us new characters with interesting deals, and most of all it's all SUPER funny in a way that trusts the reader to get the joke instead of holding their hand through it.

The video game humor, especially, is something done really well here that's apparently surprisingly hard for most litrpgs to manage. The fact that the company has the most amazing graphics ever invented and technical expertise to implement features beyond the realm of science fiction, but can't do actual game design to save their lives and are continually overlooking basic things like the physical size of interface boxes making some features not work and having to desperately patch them in post launch may be the most realistic and hilarious depiction of an MMO in prose ever.

Tl;dr: it's good and you should read it, whether or not litrpg is your thing.